This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, a 12-member co-op formed to help its members survive cyclical market swings and make sheep dairying profitable in the Upper Midwest.

Sheep's milk cheese is a new taste for many Americans, and sheep dairying in Wisconsin -- California's rival as the top dairy state -- is relatively new. A few farms were established in the early 1980s, but those pioneering farmers encountered inconsistent demand for their milk; the artisan cheese business had not quite taken off yet. The few plants making sheep's milk cheeses didn't want to buy milk from a lot of small producers because of the overwhelming amount of paperwork, licensing and inspections involved.

So several farmers banded together as a cooperative, to provide a single, convenient source of milk for cheese plants. From the start, the WSDC planned to add value to its milk by making cheese. Dante, an aged cheese developed for the cooperative by dairy scientists at the University of Wisconsin, debuted about four years ago. The university actually made the cheese the first few years, but last year, the cooperative moved production to a private cheese plant. I don't know what the cheese was like when the professors were making it, but it's lovely now.

Dante is a seasonal cheese, made between February and September, when the ewes are milked. For much of that time, they are on pasture. The milk is gathered from co-op flocks -- which aren't all in Wisconsin, but in Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa as well -- and delivered to the Wisconsin plant, where it is pasteurized, cultured, coagulated and shaped into 10-pound wheels.

Dante receives at least six months' aging, during which time it becomes firm and dry, comparable in texture to Vella Dry Jack. The extended aging produces toasted nut and brown butter aromas and a sweetness that lands on the tongue immediately and lasts a long time. Dante has a rich, full flavor and a finish that won't quit.

The interior paste is golden, which may reflect the content of the animals' pasture diet. Most sheep's milk cheeses from Europe are ivory or butter colored, even when aged. The cheesemaker coats the wheels early in the aging process with a thin edible polymer coating, which slows moisture loss and prevents mold from growing on the rind. I don't love this feature -- to me, the most interesting cheeses have natural rinds -- but it cuts down on labor because the wheels don't have to be constantly brushed to rid them of unwanted mold.

Serve Dante before dinner with fino or manzanilla sherry and green olives, or at the end of a meal with a young, fruity red wine, such as a Spanish Garnacha. To make a dessert course out of it, accompany it with dates and oloroso sherry.